


Elsinore D&D Club

by sappho_42



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Hamlet - All Media Types, Hamlet - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: DM!Horatio, Dungeons and Dragons, Gen, everyone plays dnd thats it thats the plot, hamlet “nobody dies” AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2020-09-02 12:10:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20275711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sappho_42/pseuds/sappho_42
Summary: Horatio has a passion for tabletop roleplaying games, so no one is surprised when he reveals that he’s brought his DnD set to Elsinore.Everyone in Hamlet gets together to play D&D and they (mostly) enjoy it. No one’s dead. Huzzah.





	1. Barbarian

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hamlet as a D&D Paladin](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/508618) by binary-bird.tumblr.com. 

Horatio has a passion for tabletop roleplaying games, so no one is surprised when he reveals that he’s brought his D&D set to Elsinore.

Hamlet had always indulged Horatio in D&D at Wittenberg, so he was an obvious choice. Horatio knew he had already rolled up a paladin that he was dying to play.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were easy to rope in, too, although they’d never struck Horatio as being the D&D type. They were eager to customize a pre-made ranger and sorcerer, and what they came up with wasn’t half bad.

There was only one problem: nobody wanted to play a tank or a healer, and Horatio wanted to fill those roles in a group of (mostly) new players. He began a text to Hamlet, then thought the better of it. Under “S” in his contacts, he selected “Sweet Prince” and then “Call”.   
This was an emergency, after all.

“Is there anybody else you know that might be interested?”  
“N— well, I was going to ask Ophelia if she wanted to come with me, I don’t really know if she wants to play though.”  
“Could she play a cleric?”  
“I... don’t know that that’s really her style, but hold on, lemme ask.” 

A muffled yell away from the phone. “HEY BABE?”  
“YEAH?”  
“DO YOU WANNA PLAY DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS WITH ME AND HORATIO?”  
A pause.  
“WHY?” said Ophelia.  
“HE NEEDS SOMEONE TO PLAY THE CLERIC.”  
“THE WHAT?”  
“Call you back,” said Hamlet into the phone. Then he hung up.

Five minutes later, Horatio received his call back. He answered it at once.  
“Ophelia wants to be a barbarian.”


	2. Bard(s)

_Wittenberg University Dining Hall, last fall_

It must be a rare medical phenomenon, Hamlet mused, to discover two people (not conjoined, not twins, not related, not even childhood friends— they’d met freshman year of college, in fact) who seemed to share one brain. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the duplicate subjects of his current train of thought, were sitting across the table from him and Horatio. To the uninformed, it might have looked like a double date. In reality, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had crash-landed into Hamlet and Horatio’s casual conversation. Hamlet, as Denmark’s crown prince, was used to getting recognized at inopportune moments. But he had never had the experience of his private conversations with his best friend being intruded on, much less by two tactless strangers.

Something Horatio had mentioned about Dungeons and Dragons had piqued their interest, apparently, and before Horatio could object, the pair had slid themselves in across the table from him and Hamlet and began to talk as if invited. “It’s like I have all of these great character ideas in my brain but I never get to play them, y’know,” Guildenstern (or was it Rosencrantz? Horatio hadn’t heard them introduce themselves) was saying. “Right now I have this cool tiefling bard, and his name is Giles Goldenlute, and he plays—“

“Plays the lute,” butted in Rosencrantz (or was it Guildenstern?) “See, when I was creating my tiefling bard, I knew Guil had already chosen a lute, so I couldn’t go with that. I went with a lyre, and it inspired me to name my character Rosa Silverlyre...”

Horatio glanced at Hamlet; Hamlet was staring at Rosencrantz as if he were a particularly dry physics textbook (and God knew Horatio had seen one too many of those lately). Horatio put a hand on Hamlet’s shoulder to quietly shake him out of his reverie.

“I’m so glad there’s someone else at Wittenberg who knows so much about DnD,” he interrupted Rosencrantz. “Hamlet and I are both really glad you stopped by to tell us about your bards, but unfortunately we have class soon, so...” A bald-faced lie, and it made Horatio die a little inside, but he knew he’d die a little more if he had to listen to these guys prattle on.

“Yeah,” Hamlet said quickly, and stood up. “Pleasure talking with you.” He was moving to leave when Guildenstern looked at Rosencrantz meaningfully (or was it the other way around? Fuck it, decided Horatio). Rosencrantz cleared his throat.

“Since we heard you talking before about needing more people to play in your sessions—“

“—and there’s not much you can do with one player—“

”—haven’t found anyone else on campus that’s even interested, and obviously with only the two of us—“

“—it’s not a problem if we just join you two—“

“—maybe even start a club of sorts, here at Wittenberg, eventually—“

“—we could have it in your dorm—“

“—I have class Tuesdays and Thursdays ‘til 7 but—“

”—I like most potato chips, so that’s not a problem on my end—“

“—but thanks for inviting us, can’t wait to play!”

———

It was only once the curious duo had finally left the dining hall (and Hamlet _had_ made sure that they were really, truly gone) that Horatio and Hamlet turned to each other.

In the instant way of old friends, they could tell that their unwillingness to interact further with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was shared. Horatio broke into a chuckle first. “Did they just invite themselves...?” Hamlet smiled incredulously.

“I think they did.”

“And their shitty— oh, you know it’s true— their shitty characters, they...?”

“They’re definitely knocking on your door next Thursday at 7.”

Horatio sighed.

“Dice bags and all,” added Hamlet with impish glee. “You’re gonna be DMing a revenge paladin and two spoony bards.”

Horatio tried to sigh harder; he wasn’t as used to melodrama as Hamlet. “This is going to be the worst game we’ve ever played.”

“Or, from my point of view, the best.”

“You like torturing your DM, huh.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Hamlet said nonchalantly. Horatio saw the corner of Hamlet’s mouth twist up into a smirk. He shook his head in disbelief. It only made Hamlet smirk wider. Then, under his breath, Hamlet added: “Let the game begin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized after writing Barbarian and Cleric that I’d skipped a class alphabetically. So: This was written after Chapters 1 and 3, and I think you can tell I wrote it in a hurry on a Sunday night because it feels... well, let’s just say less good. 
> 
> But I began a chapter-naming pattern, and by God I will not abandon it without a fight.


	3. Cleric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected visitor adds himself to Hamlet and Horatio’s D&D party.

“A barbarian?” Horatio had never suspected Ophelia would be a barbarian.  _ Wait, no.  _ A person who’d  ** play ** a barbarian. _That sounded better._ He was going to have to watch his jargon around the new players if he wanted to keep them invested in the session (and, he allowed himself to hope, maybe beyond?). 

“Yeah, no, it’s not what I expected either! Listen,” he lowered his voice, “that doesn’t mess with the party composition at all, does it? I don’t want an unbalanced game, you know, but if we don’t get people interested now, we might not have a game in the future and—“

“Hamlet.”

“We’d be stuck just like we were at Wittenberg, and trying to wrangle Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into—“

”Hamlet.”

”Playing with us, and I’m sorry, I love them, but they can’t roleplay for shit and it just gets on my—“

”Good my lord, shut the fuck up.” Horatio said it gently, but it stopped Hamlet’s tirade. “Listen. It’s going to work out. We just need a few more people, and when they get to see how fun roleplaying is, I’m sure they’ll stick around. Hell, even we only had Ophelia and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come, it’d still be better than our Wittenberg games.”

Hamlet smiled at the thought. ”Thankfully, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern aren’t here. They probably stayed at school over break.”

”Wait, I thought they said they were going to Elsin—“

There was a faint knocking from Hamlet’s end of the phone. ”Got to go,” Hamlet said, and hung up.

—

Ophelia had already opened Hamlet’s door when he got there. “I thought I might find you here, Ophelia,” the visitor was saying. “Although you know what I think of you spending your time in Lord Hamlet’s chambers—”

”Father, nothing is happening, we were literally just talking about Hamlet’s roleplaying game—“

”A roleplaying game! That’s the first step in the path to—“

Hamlet chose this moment to interject. 

“Polonius! Why are you here?”

The old man drew himself up and gave a perfunctory little bow to the prince before continuing. “Lord Hamlet, I was _going_ to tell you some charming news, but now I suppose there is a more pressing matter.” Polonius looked at his daughter meaningfully. “What is this ‘roleplaying’ game that you’re getting her into?”

Hamlet had opened his mouth to protest, but Ophelia was faster. She rattled off the gist of everything Hamlet and Horatio had told her with palpable excitement and the kind of speed-talking that apparently only Polonius and his family were capable of delivering or comprehending. Despite Polonius’ frequent attempts to get a word in (“Well—“, “See—“, “But—“, “Satanic—“, etc.), Ophelia bulldozed through his objections with practiced ease. Hamlet could only stand in the entryway and watch.

“—and that’s why you need to play with us!” concluded Ophelia.  _Oh no._ Had he heard her correctly?  _ Was she really convincing her father, the king’s lord chamberlain, and stick-up-his-ass extraordinaire, to play Dungeons and Dragons with him and Horatio?  _

“Hamlet, where’s that rulebook you showed me?” Ophelia asked innocently.  No way.  Hamlet had hoped that his shocked, blank stare would snap her out of it, convince that this was Not a Good Idea, and a million other things— but Ophelia had met his gaze and was standing fast. “I think Father would love to play with us.” Her smile grew. 

(Once, years before they had started puberty, let alone dating each other, Hamlet had privately thought Ophelia was stupid. Now, with the possible exception of Horatio, he was convinced Ophelia was clever enough to usurp his spot in the succession and he wouldn’t even complain.)

—

Polonius had been perusing the Player’s Handbook in silence for about ten minutes now. Ten awkward, tense minutes for Hamlet and Ophelia. He hadn’t flipped a page since Ophelia had laid it in front of him, opened to “**Chapter 1: Classes**”. 

Finally, Polonius looked up. “I am a cleric,” he said, very finally. 

Hamlet was going to have to call Horatio back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no update!! i sort of forgot this fic existed for several months, so... no promises regarding the next chapter either.


End file.
